In the News

Alternative Medicine: A Free Market Example of Health Care

Too much debate and discussion on health care reform ignores a singularly important fact about the advent of alternative medicine; namely, it was not fostered by the government, insurance carriers, the pharmaceutical industry, or trial lawyers. Its exponential growth is largely due to the actions of people (both patients and practitioners) living in a land of liberty and opportunity who were looking for new choices to better health. It is without caveat one of the finest examples of the free enterprise system in the United States—a place where the market worked its magic by offering that which is now perceived by much of the public as an affordable, safe, and potentially higher-quality service or product than that provided through conventional fields of medicine.